d the place," though, apart from a tumble-down stable and the
historic mealie-field before described, there was no "place" to show
them round.

Gerard, the recollection fresh in his mind of the dismal room and foetid
atmosphere, and the generally depressing aspect of all connected
therewith, replied, with an inward shudder, that he hardly thought he
would care about it. He would much prefer farming. This was greeted as
a huge joke.

"Pooh!" said Anstey. "Farming is a beggar's trade compared with this.
Why, bless my soul, a farmer's a slave to all the seasons, to every
shower of rain, or the want of it, even if his place and stock ain't
mortgaged up to the hilt. Again, the diseases among cattle are legion.
Now, in a neat little store like this of mine, you can just coin money
hand over fist."

His listeners thought this last statement hardly borne out by the aspect
of the surroundings in general. The other, quick to see this, went on.

"Ah, you think it don't look much like it, eh? Well, I don't wonder.
But, you see, it isn't worth my while bothering about tinkering up this
place. Here it doesn't matter how one lives. But I'm just waiting till
I've made my pile, and then--" And the concluding blank left scope for
the most magnificent, if somewhat vague possibilities.

They returned indoors, and Anstey made the heat and the walk an excuse
for another glass of grog. Then a native knocked at the door to
announce that the missing steed had been found and brought back. Harry
suggested that it was time to start on their return ride to Maritzburg.
But of this their host would not hear.

"Stay the night, anyhow," he said. "That is, if you don't mind roughing
it. I can knock you up a shakedown of some sort. I meant to have had
the spare room arranged when I first heard you were coming out, Gerard.
But I dare say you can manage without white sheets."

Gerard, of course, declared that, if anything, he rather preferred it.
That point settled, Anstey became even more the effusively genial host;
but, with all his desire to be entertaining, both were sensible of a
want of something--a difference between the perfectly frank and
self-possessed geniality of John Dawes, for instance. They were joined
at supper by the wispy-faced youth, who came straight in from his duties
in the store--now closed for the night--without going through any such
superfluous ceremony as washing. Afterwards, when the talk was in full
swing